ospel authors outsoar Moses, I think, in the morally sublime; yet
there are two or three touches in Genesis that roll and roar like
Niagara before me, and stir me so strongly, fill me so full, and lift
me so high, I find it an effort to rise to any grander conception than
they give.

"The verse on creation; the void and formless earth rolling off in
darkness; the Spirit of God on the waters; the mandate for light; the
dividing of the floods; the fixing of the firmaments; the lifting of
the sun and moon to the heavens; the arrangement of day and night; the
bringing of the seasons; the making of man: all sweep before our mind
in visions of awe, and might, and gloom; magnificence, glory, peace and
love; and we may study the chapter till we shall seem to be there in
the midst of the awful scene, and find ourselves throbbing and swaying
with a rapt spirit, and a bounding heart.

"'The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters.' This, my
friends, is an assurance of God's Providence, only surpassed by the
highest announcements of Christ. And the text has moved me profoundly,
and come in a thousand times to exalt my faith amid trials, and sooth
my griefs, and calm my solicitudes, when anguish has pierced me, and
storms have raged. The text finds a thousand illustrations. The world
was called from chaos, and warring elements, and confused and
conflicting principles have not yet been restrained from their fury, or
soothed to perfect peace. There are wars among the waters of nature;
there are wars among the waters of the moral world; there are wars of
passion in our souls, and we lose our confidence often, and often our
peace and rest. But 'the Spirit of God moves on the face of the
waters;' and they who believe this, will never feel forsaken, or lose
their balance or their hope.

"_The Spirit of God moves on the waters as they flow in the course of
Nature_; and at this very hour He is present in all her stirring
scenes, commanding her mighty forces, preserving her general harmony,
and leading all her rushing rivers of motion, power and life, into one
wide ocean of purity and peace. And this is that gracious Providence
asserted in the text, and announced so often by the Savior. It
requires a lofty faith to discover that Providence, at all times; to
detect its personal presence, and rest in its parental love. What a
time it was in the beginning, while the earth was formless and void,
and darkness brooded over the se